Le Grove – Arsenal blog featuring Arsenal news

Learns bugger all that is, what an absolute joke defence we have, Koscielny adds what exactly? Apart from opening his goal scoring account, shame it was in his own net though.

Chamakh’s nickname was the plank in France, I’m guessing we’ll be giving that one to Fabianski after this game.

What this game showed us is that Fabianski is even worse than we thought he was, if we play Liverpool with that team we’ll get hammered.

Nasri looked great as did Chamakh, when Chamakh got the score back to 1-3 he held of four players, laid it off to Nasri, who whipped it back in the box for a Chamakh header, superb.

Chezzer came on for the second half and it only took our woeful defence 3 minutes for him to show how good he really is, in fact he’s as good as Fabianski’s bad, he pulled off a fantastic double save, awesome. Kept us in the game, no doubt.

No wonder they nicknamed him ‘The wall’

Shortly after that, a Vela free kick saw Eboue of all people, nick in behind the keeper to head in, 2-3.

54 minutes and a Clichy howler let in Manu who was bearing down on goal before Vermaelen hacked him down, no penalty, what a let off, we should have been 4-2 down and with only 10 men left on the pitch, lucky, lucky Arsenal.

Well Eboue scores a blinder, on 60 minutes he receives from Wilshere and waits for the keeper to move, then he lets rip 3-3, see you Theo I’m afraid.

2 minutes later and Legia start defending like us, a ball over the top sees Gibbs rap one in the roof of the net from the left wing.

76 minutes and Koscielny’s ball watching allows them an equaliser, Arsene, whoever recommended this bloke, you need to sack, was it the same scout who suggested you bought Stepanovs?

80 minutes and a flick on sees JET hold off their full back and smash the ball in 4-5 to the good guys.

83 minutes and Nasri is rewarded for his performance with a low well hit free kick, 4-6 maybe their keeper is as bad as Fabianski.

An injury time Lansbury cock up sees our shocking defence let in another, 5-6

This is Legia Warsaw people, what happens when we play a Premiership team? We let in 5 goals for Christ’s sake, 5 goals, what exactly did Wenger learn then from our poor defending last year?

There is no way he had been tracking Koscielny, no way, I bet he bought him sight unseen on the recomendation of his mate Grimandi. He really isn’t the answer, if anything we are worse than last season, we saw the cracks against Celtic, Arsene, you have a week to sort this out, you let 4 defenders leave and replaced them with one who isn’t as good as Senderos.

Even the most die hard AKB can see that we need a keeper and a proper old fashioned centre back, if they can’t, then they can’t like Arsenal as much as I do.

I write a positive post on Friday and then watch this game, stop being so tight, go and spend the money or you will be throwing away another season, what must Cesc be thinking?

I know that Vermaelen was rubbish last pre-season and to be honest wasn’t great yesterday, I may be unfair on Koscienly but the reason is, he’s another Vermaelen, we don’t need two, that’s like having two Keowns, we need a big lump in there that can out jump everyone, we’ve needed that for years.

It’s just disappointing to see we have learned little from last year, 1 week to go and we still haven’t decided which one of our awful keepers we are going with, 1 week to go and we are still crap at defending, perhaps our manager should have spent the summer sorting that out and not commentating.

Still at least Wilshere and Gibbs have been called up by England, I wonder if we’ll keep Jack now, it’s Fabianski and Almunia he should be loaning out, no one would want them though, would they?

Have a great Sunday Grovers, enjoy the Community Shield, we’ll get to see how far they have come!

So Pedro and I went to Members day at the Emirates, as shareholders we got taken to the new WM club and were given a free lunch with wine, very nice of them indeed, would I pay out £10k to join it, no, it was like eating in the works canteen, lovely staff and reasonable food, but £10k, not a chance.

Not to mention the club level fans in that area have lost probably 10,000sq ft. of lounge area, shame on you Arsenal, you have tried to find another way of skinning the same fans and that’s not right. If it was a restaurant that you could pay at on the day, I would have applauded it, but it isn’t and that’s just greedy, there is only so much money the fans will keep on paying and Arsenal may have just found the tipping point. And they package it up like they are giving the fans something extra. Shameful.

I expect it to turn into a restaurant in a season or two. Mark my words.

We sat in our seats and had an official for company, he wasn’t a steward, but he was a top bloke, and strangely, shared our views on recent events, non signings and all things Arsenal, we all agreed the stadium was a great move and Arsenal do some stuff better than anyone, anyway, we watched the team picture being taken and waited to see the players train.

They all went in and were announced as they came out, first out was world cup winner and captain, Cesc Fabregas, he came out to a roar and he ran out like my son did when he played for the cubs, excited, smiling and his kness were hitting his shoulders, he was excited, happy and seemed delighted to be there, what the hell has been going on this summer? He sure didn’t look like he didn’t want to be there, then the crowd burst into ‘we got Cesc Fabregas’ he loved it and clapped back and smiled like he had just won the pools, top, top man. He’s back and he’s back to stay!

Onto the team, I was looking at the players and in particular Denilson, you all know my views, but he’s bulked up, I said to Pedro, what if he has a Flamster season, I remember Flamini and apart from his stint at left back, I thought he was rubbish, then he had a wonder season, when Milan played us last weekend, I thought how much I wish we had him, then I looked at Denilson and something happened to me, I thought supposing he comes good? Hmmm, let’s see, it could happen.

So why do I think that? Frimpong, he has had a great pre-season and for the first time, Song and Denilson have competition and are on the timer, I hope so, I really want those two to be what we lack, an enforcer, a dirty pair of little gits that will show the other teams not to mess with our stars. Watch this space.

Chamakh came on to a huge cheer as did Robin the boy wonder, so I looked at the kids and thought, they don’t look so young anymore and when we play in the Carling cup, they will beat anyone, I really think this will be our year.

As for having Puyol and Iniesta on my new shirt, I think those two tossers have done more for Wenger’s resolve that £80mil could have, I also think they have disrespected us and Cesc knows it, so a big thank you to the pair of them!

Now the shocking news was we discovered Sagna can actually cross a decent ball, he made three crosses that went above knee height and found JET and Chamakh each time, a sign of good things to come.

No, it wasn’t the wine, this all took place before the two bottles that piggy Pedro and I polished off. The down side was Almunia was announced as number 1, and that surprised me, Pedro, the official from Arsenal and I all agreed we need to get a keeper we can rely on, Mannone looked better than our number 1.

So in all, I was very happy with what I saw, I didn’t expect to be, but I was. So why do I think we’ll win the league? Well the Chavs and Mancs have hardly bought, Rooney can’t have another season like the last and both teams are getting older, Terry was shocking at the world cup as was fat Frank, I would be surprised if either of them finish above us. Liverpool will improve and the spuds will tread water as will Villa. Man City have bought way too many players and can’t really play like a team.

So our kids will have had another year together and have bulked up, Nasri looks world class, Robin and Cesc are, Wilshere and Rosicky will give us trickery, Chamakh will be our Drogba and I expect Frimpong, Song and Denilson to provide what we have previously lacked, bottle and aggression.

I also think that Theo will finally prove why Wenger rates him so highly, I know many of you think he’s no good, but I think he will have a great year and JET gives us options at last, don’t loan him out boss.

Koscielny and Vermaelen are great tacklers and read the game well but struggled with the high balls and Almunia doesn’t instill confidence, if Wenger can bring in a big world class (big) defender and a keeper that can catch a ball at set pieces, then I think we’ll clean up. And Arsenal legend Frank McLintock who was a special guest, agreed.

For some of you, me saying that will be the real shocking discovery and not the crossing ability of Sagna.

Anyway, one thing is for sure, we need to play Liverpool with our best team, and that means Cesc and Robin have to play. Finally I didn’t see Diaby, I hear he pulled a muscle getting out of his Ferrari on his way to the team photo shoot. Get well soon Apu, sorry I meant Abu. (not the owner of the quicki-mart in the Simpson’s)

Have a great day Grovers, I have a funny feeling this year.